When Rocky III premiered in 1982, I was twelve years old, living in central New Jersey about an hour from Philadelphia. Like countless kids, I wanted to run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and stand beside the Rocky statue with my fists raised in the air.
Six years later, that chance finally seemed to arrive.
In 1988, my high school advanced art class took a field trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My friends and I couldn't wait to recreate the famous scene from the movie. Instead, our bus pulled around to the museum's rear entrance. We never made the run up the front steps, and I don't remember seeing the statue at all. Looking back, it had likely already been moved to the Spectrum.
It was a small disappointment at the time, but one I never really forgot.
Life moved on. I left for college, eventually settled in Ohio, and the Rocky statue became one of those things I always meant to go back and see.
That finally happened in 2005.
While visiting Philadelphia, I made sure we found the statue at the Spectrum. After more than twenty years of wanting to see it, I finally stood in front of it for the first time—with a camera in my hands.
A year later, photography gave me an opportunity I never could have imagined.
In September 2006, I was assigned to photograph Sylvester Stallone during the dedication ceremony when the statue returned to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. What began as a childhood fascination had unexpectedly become a professional assignment.
Then, in 2025, another chapter unfolded.
When Sylvester Stallone loaned his personal Rocky statue to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a special exhibition and it was placed at the top of the famous steps, I knew I couldn't miss it. I'd been waiting forty-three years to see a Rocky statue where I had imagined it as a twelve-year-old.
The morning after we arrived in Philadelphia, while the rest of my family slept, I quietly left the hotel at 4:30 a.m.
For two hours, it was just me, the statue, and the first light of day.
No crowds.
No tour buses.
Just the moment I'd imagined since childhood.
Not long afterward, the museum announced that the movie statue itself would permanently occupy that location at the top of the steps.
The place I'd waited decades to see had finally become permanent.
Today, because much of our family still lives in New Jersey, we pass through Philadelphia several times each year. We almost always make the detour to visit Rocky. What began as a childhood dream has become a family tradition, and through the years I've been fortunate to photograph the statue through changing locations, changing seasons, historic events, and changing generations.
This gallery tells that story.